Onyx comes through near black haze to reveal a true deep black that buries itself deep in the endless distance. She wears it on the tip of her nails; she drapes her lips in a frosting of sensual delights and it warms her. Burning colors like an August sunset, her face flushes with pinks, oranges, and reds.

I'm definitely riding that edge of fashion/advertisement photography aesthetic that I get accused of from time to time. Guilty as charged. Although, I really wonder why when people accuse me of this, they equate it to the equivalency of murder. I could see how someone could become frustrated with me and my work if I was oblivious to what I was creating. But I'm not, but regardless the debate continues.

See my next work of art before anyone else: [link]Download for full resolution.

Yeah, it's strange world. When I've had my work critiqued by a particular egotistical group of peers of mine I constantly felt I was in a courtroom sitting in that little box with a microphone. And as they responded to my work with the strangest of criticism I felt like I was being accused of wrongdoing. As though I broke some unspoken artistic law. Haha

How distasteful. I would probably try to respond in a tactful way, challenging their criticism with different viewpoints or asking for elaboration on what they mean or why they might be interpreting X in that way. Dem art laws!

Well actually, they were bullies (art bullies!) in my school that would threaten and intimidate people inside and outside the classroom. I've graduated since then obviously, but I was just reminded by some of things they said. I much prefer and more open and accessible approach to art. They were all about closing doors in people's faces and making up BS circular logic arguments in order to defend their laziness to create something worthwhile.

Oh, I vaguely remember you discussing a bit about those types of people when I commented on either a journal or another piece of yours a while back.Art bullies...you would think that most artists would be the opposite of that to some degree (at least respecting people's creative decisions even if they don't like the medium/style). That just seems so juvenile and completely counter intuitive in terms of art. If you close doors and try to establish some sort of profound rigidity in art nowadays, it's just making art go backwards and will lead to stagnation. With the advancement in/of technology, humans really only have their creativity left to help define us as a species. Ugh, those types of people are just going to fade into obscurity and amount to nothing more than the eraser bits that come off after a sketch (though that may be wishful thinking since the world works in mysterious ways). Oh how I wish I could have met them and had a Tet-a-tet.

You would think so. The strangest part about it is that they pride themselves in their openness and flexibility with others, which is the antithesis of how they actually act. They are usually the first ones to thump their chests like ol' King Kong when bragging about how they are so open-minded and accepting of the world around them.

I bet you can imagine how other people felt around them. The worst part about it is that this behavior was encouraged by certain professors and it is commonplace in the professional art world. I've attended many exhibition receptions and this behavior just breeds and spread like the flu. So even though this was a minority of people, it had a stranglehold over the majority people within that major and that section of the school. We had no voice and we had no way of fighting back. The school did nothing to solve it, either, the only reason it ended was that the group of offenders eventually graduated and left the school the same time we all graduated. Now they are my rivals in the professional field, so to speak. That just irks me that they are out there breeding this hateful and exclusionary point of view.

Hopefully, I'm not sounded like a total hippy here with my advocating for a more fluid and casual approach to art, but it annoys me a personal and professional level. I guess it is a difference in opinion too, since they believe that art is only for those who "understand" it and have an education in the arts. They take a lot of pride in making art only accessible to those who are apart of their special little club. It is as though they are trying to hold art itself ransom from the rest of us.

I suppose that that also makes art what it is: polysemous, even in conception/conceptualization. However, it's disgusting that such an attitude was encouraged--near enforced it sounds--when the administration should have been focusing on objectively (as much as possible) encouraging students to approach the subject matter in a way they thought was appropriate. I mean, yes, it's important to pay attention to design elements in a piece, but that isn't the sole thing that defines art. Gah, how frustrating! I would have had SOOO many problems.